The Story Behind Style

The ladies and gentleman I photograph always have great stories to tell. Oftentimes they will have things in their wardrobes that they have kept for many years. These special items carry with them, memories of the past. The other day Carola asked if I would like to see some Chinese coats that her mother had passed down to her. We met up in a small city park and I took a few shots of her in her mother’s coats. As a girl Carola always looked forward to special gifts from her mother.I asked her to share some words about her mother below:

Our mother, Emily Hahn, was a dazzling, beautiful adventurer and writer. She had spent some time in Hollywood as a screenwriter and then, on a trip around she discovered Shanghai. She stayed in China for 9 years, teaching and writing. She had a love affair there with a Chinese poet and when this relationship deteriorated she met my father who was stationed in Hong Kong as a British intelligence officer. I was born from this passion. At the behest of my father, who feared for our lives and who had been imprisoned by the Japanese after being badly wounded in the battle of Hong Kong, my mother and I took a refugee ship to New York. We were joined there by my father after Japan surrendered at the end of World War II and he was able to escape from his prison camp when the prison guards abandoned it.

While my mother survived some war years in Hong Kong, she told me that a fur lined chinese robe kept her warm through savage weather and deprivations of food and heat.

My mother was not vain and she enjoyed a life of the mind. Still, her glamor and beauty touched me I remember the gifts my mother would bring back to my sister and me from New York. We lived in England at this time, after my father came to get us in New York and bring us to his home in the English countryside. She brought us dresses. My favorites were a billowy skirted white dress with red roses scattered over it and a persian turquoise summer dress spangled with gold stars. These dresses remain in my memory linked to Rome, city of gold and apricot, where my mother had taken me at the perfect age of 14, for a Roman holiday!

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Written By

Ari Seth Cohen

Photographer and author, Ari Seth Cohen, is the creator of Advanced Style, a project devoted “to capturing the sartorial savvy of the senior set.” He says, “I feature people who live full creative lives. They live life to the fullest, age gracefully and continue to grow and challenge themselves.”

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What an amazing story. So beautiful. He memories are full of such life in spite of the difficulty they must have endured. Such an abiding spirit is a gift. May she keep her beautiful memories with her always.

Stories like that amaze me. I have a grandmother who I feel so lucky to have as a part of my life. She lived through WWII and was a part of the French Resistance. She has such spirit and has done so many amazing things. I really hope I can honor how fully she lives life by doing the same with my own.

Mary in Austin

Emily Hahn was a great writer! I love her books. She led an extremely adventurous life.

Rebecca

Ari, you have done such a wonderful service to us all – bringing so many fascinating and beautiful people to our attention. I love your blog and can't wait for the book!

I want a kimono – this is a very special story. In my journalistic experience I have also interviewed several older people and have remained entranced by their stories of the past, of their world, of their memories. That is why your blog is so special – you bring respect back to the older generation.